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Friday, 14 June 2013

The last day of the season in the Premier league and the Football league was so dramatic.

But first, after the shock retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson all eyes were on Newcastle vs Arsenal and Tottenham vs Sunderland. All Arsenal had to do was match Spurs' result. Arsenal won a hard fought game 1-0 thanks to a superb finish from Laurent Koscielny while Tottenham beat Sunderland with a Gareth Bale last minute winner. Despite Tottenham's effort they failed to qualify for the Champions league again. Meanwhile the other results in the Premier league were: West Brom ( Morrison, Lukaku 3, Mulumbu)5-5 Man Utd (Kagawa, Olsson og, Buttner, van Persie, Hernandez), Tottenham (Bale) 1-0 Sunderland, Newcastle 0-1 Arsenal (Koscielny), Man City (Rodwell 2) 2-3 Norwich (Pilkington, Holt, Howson), Liverpool (Coutinho) 1-0 QPR, Chelsea (Mata, Torres) 2-1 Everton (Naismith), Swansea 0-3 Fulham (Kacaniklic, Berbatov, Emanuelson), West Ham (Nolan 3, Vaz Te) 4-2 Reading (McCleary, Le Fondre), Wigan (Boyce, Baker og) 2-2 Aston Villa (Bent, Vlaar), Southampton (Lambert) 1-1 Stoke (Crouch)
And congratulations to Robin van Persie who won the Golden Boot with 23 goals, and to Gareth Bale who won the PFA Player of the Year, Young Player of the Year and Football Writers Player of the Year.

In the Championship, Cardiff City won the Championship title 8 points ahead of runner up Hull City who edged the final automatic place ahead of Watford who lost 2-1 to Leeds on the final day. And the relegation scrap was huge!! However, it was Wolves and Peterborough who went down along with Bristol City who were 14 points away from relegation.
In the play offs Leciester beat Watford 1-0 thanks to a David Nugent header and Crystal Palce were held to a goalless draw against Brighton at home. In the second leg with Watford beating Leciester 2-1 to take it to extra time Leciester had a penalty save, the rebound also saved and Watford did the mother of all counter attacks and Troy Deemey smashed in the winning goal to send the Watford fans wild! Meanwhile, a Wilfred Zaha inspired Crystal Palace booked there place in Wembley beating Brighton 2-0 at the Amex stadium.
In the play off final (which I went to!) it was the most tense game I'd ever watched! It took an extra time penalty from former Watford man Kevin Phillips to settle the match.

In League 1 the final day was also very dramatic as Bournemouth were already promoted but missed out on the title when they drew 0-0 with Tranmere and Doncaster beat promotion hopefuls Brentford 1-0.
In the play off semi final Sheffield Utd beat Yeovil 1-0 to take a slender lead to Yeovil. And in the other semi final Swindon played Brentford in a stalemate. The second legs took a turn for the worst for Sheffield Utd and Swindon who lost 2-0 and on penalties respectively.
In the play off final Yeovil held on to beat Brentofrd 2-1 and reached the Championship for the first time in their history.

In League 2 it was a similar story but the other end of the table and in the end it was Barnet and Aldetshot who lost their League 2 status. These are the final tables throughout England:
Premier League
Man Utd (c) 89
Man City 78
Chelsea 75
Arsenal 73
Tottenham 72
Everton 63
Liverpool 61
West Brom 49
Swansea 46
West Ham 46
Norwich 44
Fulham 43
Stoke 42
Southampton 41
Aston Villa 41
Newcastle 41
Sunderland 39
Wigan (r) 36
Reading (r) 28
QPR (r) 25